


One Word

by UnrealRomance



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aftermath, Brainwashing, F/M, Fill, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnrealRomance/pseuds/UnrealRomance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for Kinkmeme prompt about Thane being brainwashed by the Hanar so they can use a Code word to control him completely.</p><p>I really hope you like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Word

**Author's Note:**

> Link to Kinkmeme Post:
> 
> http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/9115.html?view=43719323#t43719323

One word. That is all they needed. One word is all they needed to twist my loyalties and darken my vision to a tunnel.

They said this one word and I turned on my Commander. My Commander, my lover, my Siha. I had no idea what I was doing at the time. Just disjointed moments of awareness that I couldn't cling to for more than a moment.

"Thane." Shepard is still trying to comfort me, in her hospital bed, every bone in her body broken- organs damaged, almost dead- "Thane, stop it." She would likely be saying more if she weren't finding it so hard to breathe.

I remember the feeling of being razed open with every breath. "You should be resting." I turn to look at her, seeing her bruised, battered face and knowing I'll never forget. Never want to forget. "Everyone left for the day."

"I noticed." She takes a pause and forces down the fit of coughs that want to overtake her. I remember that as well. "I know what you're doing. Stop it."

"We aren't speaking until you can do so without injuring yourself." I reach over and tap her morphine controls. "Sleep."

"Cheap shot..." She breathes, slipping into unconsciousness.

" _Cheap shot, Thane!" My target dances away from me, holding her chest and coughing up blood. "If you're gonna kill me, at least do it without making a mess. Come on, I know you're still in there- you could've taken me out five times by now-"_

I wrench myself out of the partial memory, inhaling deeply and rubbing my fingers over my brow. I am close to tears, though I have never been the type to allow myself to cry, and the only times I have it has been to release the pressure inside when it was too much to handle any longer.

The hospital room is quiet and smells the same as all hospitals do.

_Antiseptic in my nose, cool metal under my back, pinning my wrists and ankles. Hanar tentacles stroking my brow, "This one is glad to have you back in the fold."_

Inhaling harshly, I rip myself away from that memory as well. The Hanar took me, had me kidnapped on the Citadel in the midst of the Cerberus coup.

They used a cure they didn't tell anyone they had to heal me. They cloned my lungs, transplanted them and cycled the blood in my body through a machine that re-oxygenated every cell. I still have Kepral's, but I could be mostly rid of it if I live carefully.

They then used brainwashing I didn't even remember from my days in training to order me into contracts once again.

I am lucky I came up against Shepard when they directed me to kill everyone in that hotel. They did not know she would be there, but she had been tracing my activities.

They used a code word to enslave my body to their will. My soul called out for it to stop, and it did not listen.

I pinned her, broke her ribs. Broke her arms while she tried to fight me off, broke her legs when she tried to kick me. My eyes flit to her as I remember, allowing the memories to skim past the back of my eyes without engulfing me.

My warrior-angel fought to the very end of her endurance, until Liara and Garrus could show up with the code word to release me.

I awoke, staring down at her with my left hand wrapped around her windpipe.

_I jerk away from the woman I love, hand almost feeling as though it's burning. "Siha-?" I choke on the endearment._

_Even choking up blood with her limbs broken, she finds the strength to smile and whisper. "_ There _you are."_

I stand up and pace around the room, clenching my hands around my temples.

I search for another memory to soothe myself.

" _We destroyed their logs, killed everyone who knew the code word. There's no one around who knows it but us, and later- Shepard if you want to tell her." Liara sighs and rubs her forehead. "I can't promise I'll forget it, my habit is to remember information of any kind, but Garrus will definitely forget."_

_Curled up in the shuttle, staring blankly ahead of me, I turn to look at her. "I trust you not to use it against me unless you need to for Shepard's sake."_

" _I would never do that to you." She insists. "Even for Shepard. It's...wrong."_

Then another.

" _They say she'll live, thank god for Cerberus upgrades." Garrus settles next to me on the low bench, sighing. "We won't be able to see her for a while, she's...critical."_

" _How..." I bow my head and cup my hands, praying to my gods for...I don't know. Absolution? Forgiveness? I don't deserve it. "Will she be crippled by this?"_

" _Not so long as they can heal her up right."_

It has been a year since I last saw my Siha. In the hospital, one of her many visits during shore leave in between missions.

" _Thane." She always says my name, the same way she did on the Normady. To alert me, to be polite...simply to say it._

" _Siha." I stand and greet her, turning to accept the embrace she gives me. She never squeezes hard enough to tax me, arms looped around my shoulders rather than my neck._

_Her head rests against my chest, listening to me breathe. I have no illusions about her opinion. She wanted me to get better, wanted me to live- but she is far more forgiving of myself than I am. I will not take someone else's chance at life for my own. And transplanting a pair of lungs would only give me a paltry few years anyway._

She would often come to see me simply to make contact. If she had more time to stay and talk, she would make conversation. If not, she would stay silent. She was silent far more often than I'd liked- but she came far more often than I'd hoped.

Now I have all the time in the world, the rest of my natural lifespan, forty years give or take...and I have nearly killed her.

I know she will not blame me, I know the others do not either.

" _Shit." Jack paces outside the hospital and flickers. Her biotics are rioting against her control. "Why couldn't you leave one alive for me to crush? I'd feel better if I could rip one of the creepy jellyfish fuckers apart with my bare hands."_

" _I'm certain you could find some." I am only outside because they will not allow me into her room, and Garrus demanded I get fresh air. "There are likely more than myself that are being subjected to this particular...injustice."_

_Jack pauses and stares at me. "I always thought I had it bad. But at least I always had my own mind." She almost looks sick. "Fuck."_

And when Grunt...

" _Shepard almost died because someone took over your mind?" The Krogan snorts through his nostrils. "Using someone else to fight your battles. The Hanar are weak, dishonorable. I would kill them all if I weren't sure she'd hate it."_

Yes. My Siha isn't one to allow prejudice to direct her decisions. All Hanar would not pay for the actions of a few. But she will likely go on a tear across Kahje to eliminate the handlers. When a problem, something out of balance is brought to her attention, she doesn't let it go until it is resolved.

I may help her.

I defended the compact the first time she asked, the second time she asked, and in every subsequent argument about it we ever had. I didn't realize I was reciting my answers by rote from a handbook. Liara uncovered that for my perusal as well.

The Hanar always intended to take me back when my condition deteriorated to the level it had in the last few months before the defeat of the Reapers. They intended to make it seem as if I had died on the Citadel. They even had a body similar to mine, I don't know who he was or if he was...well, he had my DNA.

They must have cloned the body. They shot him through the head but Doctor Chakwas said the brain matter wasn't developed. It was always meant to be a double. A false corpse to convince my Siha there was nothing she could do to save me. I was already gone.

But Chakwas's suspicion had been enough for her. She contacted Liara. She was already investigating.

It took them months to find evidence of me, months more to track me down. Shepard spent the first few recuperating from her near-death on the Crucible. They poured resources into that particular effort until she could open her eyes.

She shouldn't have been fighting anyone, let alone a trained, brainwashed assassin.

They told me, she thought I was working off some kind of life-debt to the Hanar for saving my life, or something equally in character for what she knows of me.

She had hoped to talk me into coming home.

"Dad?" Kolyat's entrance surprises me. I'm so distraught I didn't even hear him coming.

"Kolyat." I clear my throat and shake my head. "What are you doing here?"

"Are you serious?" His brow furrows, and then smooths. "Sorry, I-. I'm here." He shrugs and looks at his feet.

"I only meant:" I rake my teeth across my bottom lip in a familiar habit I picked up from Shepard and turn to glance at her behind me. "I thought only family was allowed. Liara had to make a fake marriage license just to get _me_ in."

"I'm her adopted son, apparently." Kolyat is smirking. I have not seen him smirk. It is a new tidbit I tuck away with relish. I have discovered something new about my son. "Grunt's only not allowed in because he's so big they're afraid he'd break something without meaning to. So when she wakes up, she'll see you, me and most likely Tali- since they kind of became legal sisters after the war or whatever."

Tali's taking of the name Vas Normandy never changed, and as a result, she became kin to everyone on board. In Quarian culture they _are_ family. And since they have to take all cultures into account for such things...he is likely right. "Where _is_ Tali? I haven't seen her since Shepard was brought in."

"She's trying to help settle the Quarians who got stranded here. They can't go anywhere without fuel and food, and there's not enough to go around for people to be traveling around like..." He sighs. "She said she'd be able to come tomorrow. Shepard probably won't be off her Morphine by then, right?"

"She has been already." I admit. "She attempted to begin speaking, and nearly caused a coughing fit- so I turned it back up."

"Shit, it's probably her implants...or just her." He rolls his eyes. "One thing I can say about your taste in women, they're never weak." A moment passes, but a sick expression does not cross his face.

I had almost thought Shepard lying to save my feelings when she told me that Kolyat's grief would improve if I only spoke about Irikah more often.

When we first arrived at the Hospital on Palaven, I had been struck with memories of my first wife. Kolyat had been called in to care for me, no one else knew quite what to do. He'd sat with me in a private room for two days, listening to my memories and reciting some of his own.

It was painful, but it seems she was right. Sharing our pain seems to have...done something.

"They are not." I agree, too tired to laugh, too burdened to smile. "Shepard does not want to blame me."

"Because you're not to blame." Kolyat shuts down whatever response I might have to that. "They didn't just slap a collar on you and send you on your merry way, Dad. They...they mind-raped you." His face crumples at the thought. "They violated you, used you- they'd have killed you if you weren't so useful anymore."

I bow my head. "I know."

"Then why do you still feel guilty?" He can see it in my face, in my eyes, I am sure.

"The same reason you still feel guilty about your mother." It isn't a good example, but it is the truth. "You were too young to save her, and yet you still beat yourself up over it."

"I...I guess I get that." He is attempting not to argue with everything I say. It's something, I suppose.

He sighs and walks into the room, finding the chair next to the one I've been occupying for the past few days.

I sit with him. "Would you like to learn to meditate?"

He snorts. "Something more boring than just sitting here, you mean?"

"It is only boring if you do not appreciate peace." I flick a look in his direction. "Have you not had enough violence and war?"

He blows air slowly through his lips, a long exhale that communicates surrender. "Fiiiine, teach me."

Many times through the next few days I have to stop what I'm doing to up Shepard's medication. She always tries to speak, and I always apologize for taking a 'cheap shot' to put her back under.

Tali came the day after she thought she would, exhausted. Suit scuffed in several places, newly mended tears in her suit. The Geth in her suit has taken to calling itself Sentinel. It apparently likes the meaning of the word, though it can't describe why.

Kolyat is in and out- sending messages, retrieving food and tea when he thinks I need it. I have no appetite, but I eat. Food will often taste bland or have to be choked down when some people are upset. It's quite the opposite for me. It is a comfort that I feel guilty for indulging in.

Shepard finally wakes two weeks after the first time, able to speak without coughing or straining her throat.

"I swear to god, you even look at that button and I'm biting through my tongue." It is an idle threat. Shepard isn't the type to kill or seriously injure herself in such a way, but it does communicate her frustration with me rather effectively.

"You are not wheezing or choking, so I see so no reason to put you back under." I assure her, leaning forward. My hand is able to caress the side of her face without hurting her now, the bruises on her cheek nearly gone.

She sighs and sinks into my touch like she is starving for it. "Thank god. What happened with the handlers?"

"They are all dead, Siha." I trace a line over her eyebrow, down across her cheekbone, back across her jaw... "The code word has been extracted, scrubbed and destroyed from their records."

"I'm not letting this go." She tells me, tears gathering on her lashes. "I just thought it was a kind of self-imposed slavery, that they were manipulating not outright...I didn't even consider they could be brainwashing you or your people."

"You took me at my word when I said they were not." I take the liberty of tracing the fading bruises around her throat. "When you are well, if you wish to hunt them down, I will follow. If you do not, I am fine with that as well."

"That your way of trying to get me to retire?" She perks the wrong brow and flinches. "That's weak sauce, Krios."

"I know who you are, Siha. A desk job will hold no appeal as long as you can walk and hold a gun." A twist to the edge of my mouth. "I find myself torn between wishing you wouldn't and being ashamed of myself for it."

"Hm." She hums and turns her face to kiss my fingertips.

I withdraw my hand and sit back in my chair, sighing. "I know you will never blame me for this, and somehow that simply makes it worse."

"Guilt will plague everyone." She shrugs. "You've already dealt with it or you wouldn't be here talking to me."

"Kolyat helped, yes." In-between reliving memories, I got through a bout of self-loathing I thought would never end.

"I'm glad. We can deal with anything else in the universe as long as you're free." She rubs her temple with newly healed fingertips, frowning at them afterwards, flexing the joints. "We're going to need to start that stretching routine again when my legs work- I'm stiff as all hell."

"I would be happy to, Siha." The relief of the moment overwhelms me, just for a moment.

The war is won. My son is alive and well, we are making progress. Shepard is alive, her crew is alive...

Even though there is much wrong, much out of balance...I cannot help feeling everything is right with the world.


End file.
